


Upon a Midnight Clear

by ssclassof56



Series: Then Live With Me and Be My Love [8]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Eve, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 21:43:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13132818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssclassof56/pseuds/ssclassof56
Summary: On Christmas Eve, Illya is ready to settle down for a long winter’s nap. His children have other ideas.





	Upon a Midnight Clear

Illya hung the last of the stockings and stepped back to observe the results. One, two, three, four, five holiday receptacles, each brimming with gifts, stretched across the mantel in a picturesque arrangement. He pushed Léon’s Toblerone down a fraction further. Then, assuming a mask of angelic innocence, he scanned the shadowy room in the mirror. His wife had threatened dire and anatomical consequences should he peek into his own stocking. She had not, however, said anything about squeezing it. 

With deft fingers, he explored the lumpy contours of the red felt. As always, an orange nestled in the toe, the simple fruit providing a comforting sense of continuity. There was citrus in the toe on Christmases Past, and there would be citrus in the toe on Christmases Future. Above the orange, he felt a small jar. Macadamia nuts. No surprises so far. Next to that something hard and slender with a convex curve. New calipers. Excellent. It was best not to speculate on what the boys had done with his last pair.

He dropped his hands, not wishing to ruin all the surprises. He turned from the mantel and admired the tree once more. White fairy lights, carefully strung around each bough from trunk to tip, cast their warm glow on ornaments of brass and hand-blown glass. Delicate strands of silver tinsel shimmered with the slightest stirring of the air. Artfully-stacked presents surrounded the base. He made a minor adjustment to an artificial branch, allowing an English horn to swing freely. Then he circled the tree, deeply satisfied that each angle was as pleasing as the next. Tomorrow morning the sublime harmony would be ravaged by the frenzy of unwrapping, but for tonight all was calm and bright.

After basking in the sight a few moments more, he switched off the lights. A final sweep of the ground floor, then he could sleep. As he headed to check the back doors, he saw pink light pulsating at the end of the hall. Someone, or likely two someones were no longer nestled all snug in their beds.

He entered the room, and his brows lifted in surprise. His daughter was curled up on the end of the sofa, an afghan of candy-cane chevrons drawn up to her chin. He tip-toed closer. Her small head rested against the back cushions. Long, dark lashes fanned out against her cheeks, and gentle snores escaped her open mouth. She had his eyes and her mother’s adenoids. 

Her brushed a damp brown curl from her forehead. “Lilenchka,” he said in a gentle sing-song.

Her wide blue eyes blinked open and slowly focused on his face. “Is it time?”

“Time for what? Santa?”

She shook her head. “For Frank to talk.”

“What?” Illya said, immediately suspicious.

“At midnight. Léon said he would.” She pushed down the afghan, a gift from Mrs. Waverly, and rubbed her eyes with her fists. In her lap, the folds of red and white knitting stirred. A brown furry head poked out from between them. The ferret rubbed his own face with his paws and yawned broadly.

“Your brother told you that, did he?”

She nodded, her brow wrinkling in sudden concern. “Is it true?”

“It had better be,” he said, addressing the room at large. He checked his watch. “Only five more minutes. May I wait with you?”

Liliya uncurled her legs and held up the extra width of afghan. Illya slid in beside her. As she leaned into him, the ferret writhed in her lap and snuggled back under the folds.

“Frank doesn’t like the Ugly Tree either,” Illya said.

“We mustn’t call people ugly. Mama said.”

“Your mother is correct. Trees, however, are an entirely different matter.”

Illya considered the monstrosity flashing arrhythmically in the corner. The Ugly Tree grew out of a difference in aesthetic sensibilities. When it came to holiday decorating, he had them and his wife did not. Faustina’s ‘festive’ was his ‘garish.” What she termed ‘anemic,’ he called ‘pristine.’ After a series of surprisingly fervent arguments, and a few fervent sessions of making-up, they decided on two trees, ideologically opposite but peacefully coexisting.

“It is ugly,” Liliya admitted slowly, then giggled.

He kissed the top of her head. “You have excellent taste.”

“Sasha and Léon like this one best.”

“They also prefer a steak well done and topped with catsup, so that’s hardly a surprise.”

The twins, having inherited their mother’s tastes in Christmas décor, were Ugly Tree aficionados. They began with a fir tree so unattractive that even Charlie Brown would reject it and swathed it in a mismatched collection of lights and garland. Then they festooned it with adornments of the handmade variety that only a mother could love. Love them she did, especially as the boys were in an ongoing contest to see who could create the most hideous ornament. Atop the whole, within a halo of blinking lights, sat a glowing, disembodied Santa head, who looked more likely to steal your soul than fill your stocking. 

“Just think,” he said, patting her arm, “in two weeks it will disappear for almost an entire year.”

“Why do we have second Christmas?”

“Because your mother never does anything by halves.”

Unlike the twins, who would harp and protest for a proper answer, Liliya quietly absorbed his flippancies. They tended to re-emerge at the most interesting times. She also had the innate sense that quiet attentiveness led to more confidences than did agitation.

“Because the East and West celebrate Christ’s birth on different days,” he said, “and we have a foot in both.”

She looked at his socked feet resting on the coffee table. “Does that hurt?”

“Not anymore. I suppose I’m more limber than I used to be.” He uncrossed his stiff ankles with a grimace. “At least in that way I am.”

“Is it midnight yet?”

He looked at his watch. “Any second now.”

As he spoke, the clock in the hall signaled the hour. He felt Liliya hold her breath. Showtime.

At the sound of the Westminster chimes, the afghan parted. Frank’s head popped up. He looked around, then climbed out of his hideaway and onto the arm of the sofa. Impressive. The boys must have spent hours training their pet to respond on cue.

A nativity scene sat on the end table, hand-painted by his sons to coordinate with the tree. The colors were better suited to a toy circus, and the figures of Joseph and Mary bore a striking resemblance to Emmett Kelly and a Bearded Lady. As clock began to strike out the hour, Frank scampered onto the table and approached the Baby Jesus, sniffing the air. A treat must be hidden nearby. 

“Look, Papa, look,” Liliya breathed, bouncing on the cushion. The ferret paused before the manger and lowered his head onto his paws, almost as if he were bowing. How would they accomplish the voice? Ventriloquism? Micro-transducer?

After two more chimes, the ferret sat up onto his back legs. Illya listened for a familiar voice. None came. Frank chuckled and clucked excitedly, as he often did. The chimes continued. Nine, ten, eleven. Illya’s anger mounted. At the last chime, Frank ceased his chattering. He lowered his head a final time, then curled up in a ball and appeared to fall asleep between the donkey and sheep. 

Illya clenched a fist. His voice was carefully controlled as he said, “I’m sorry he didn’t talk, Lilenchka.”

His daughter turned her face to him. “He talked.”

“He did? What did he say?”

Liliya reached up and patted his cheek. “Silly, Papa. I don’t speak ferret.”

Illya’s heart swelled. He took her hand and kissed it. Liliya yawned. “Come, O Wise Preceptress, it’s time for you to be in bed.” He stood and moved the afghan aside, then scooped her up.

She lay her head against his shoulder. “You aren’t wearing your new jammies,” she said drowsily. 

“Mine are a bit drafty for walking around the house. They aren’t footed like yours.”

She wiggled her feet in her new green pajamas, crinkling the vinyl. “You could wear your slippers.”

“I could,” he agreed, as he carried her up the stairs. “But my calves would still be chilly.”

His wife stood waiting for them on the landing. Like the rest of the family, she wore new pajamas, hers a voluminous flannel gown she declared the perfect nightwear for a long winter’s nap. He supposed he was lucky it did not include a kerchief. 

“Mama,” Liliya murmured, “Frank wished Baby Jesus a Happy Birthday.”

“I’ll explain later,” he said, when Faustina looked at him in confusion. “Would you take her, please? I have to deal with the other creatures stirring.”

“You can’t avoid your new jammies forever,” she said with a grin, as he placed their daughter into her arms. 

“They’re redundant, you know. The two of us could fit into yours.”

Her grin widened. “Prove it.”

His heartbeat quickened. He leaned forward to give her a quick kiss, then said against her smiling lips, “I’ll be back in five minutes.”

He jogged back down the stairs, humming ‘Merry Christmas, Baby.’ Two pre-adolescent voices arguing in hushed tones carried down the hall. He entered the room unnoticed as they stood engrossed in their angry discussion, mirror images in their identical green-striped pajamas.

“I’m of half a mind to make you pack up your presents tomorrow and deliver them to the orphanage.”

The twins jumped and turned identical pairs of grey eyes on him. “What?” they squawked.

“How dare you do that to your sister. And on Christmas Eve, of all nights.”

“We weren’t trying to disappoint her,” Léon declared, “honest.”

“Yeah. Frank was going to sing ‘Joy to the World’ and everything,” Sasha said, brandishing Frank in one hand and his tiny collar in the other, “only some durak messed up the connection.”

Léon punched his brother’s shoulder. “Watch it, induk. I wasn’t the one who designed the system.”

“Enough. You’re just fortunate that the other tricks were sufficiently convincing.”

“What other tricks?”

“The bowing and the chattering when the clock struck twelve.”

The twins looked at each other and back to their father. “We didn’t teach him to do that,” Léon said.

Sasha lifted the ferret and stared at him. “Wow, Frank, you’ve been holding out on us.”

“But you must have done.”

“No, Pop. We rigged the collar to broadcast from this.” He held a device like a small walkie-talkie to his mouth and pressed the button. “But it didn’t work.”

Léon’s heavily-altered voice repeated from the collar in his brother’s hand. He threw his own hands up in disgust. “Oh, now it works.”

“I told you the design was fine. Obviously it was the operator’s fault.”

Illya stepped between them. “To bed. Now,” he said through clenched teeth, “or your presents won’t be the only things left at the orphanage.”

The twins blanched and scampered from the room. After a moment, Léon’s head reappeared in the doorway. “You are just kidding about the presents, right, Pop?” At his father’s look, he yelped and ran. Two sets of feet pounded up the stairs. A door shut. Silence. 

Illya extinguished the Ugly Tree, casting the room into deep shadow. The glow from the far end of the hall beckoned him up to his waiting wife. He carefully skirted the coffee table, then stopped. A shaft of moonlight breached the heavy curtains and fell upon the nativity scene. The cool blue wash muted its garish colors. The figures ceased to be circus performers and were once again The Holy Family. The tiny Christ Child gazed up at him with quiet attentiveness, awaiting a response. 

The song was on his lips before he even realized it.

Silent night, holy night  
All is calm, all is bright  
Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child  
Holy infant so tender and mild  
Sleep in heavenly peace  
Sleep in heavenly peace


End file.
